A chara, - Following a letter to The Irish Times from a Tony Moriarty of Kenilworth Park, Dublin (April 22nd), some acquaintances have accused me of wanting to bury alive those paramilitarists who will not go along with the Good Friday agreement. To clear up the confusion, permit me to state that I am not the Tony Moriarty who called for the "interment" (sic) of such people.
The demand for interment was probably a typographical error, but let me assure all my acquaintances (friends know where I stand) that I do not approve of burying people alive, even metaphorically, in internment camps under any circumstances.
It seems to me, in this bicentenary year of the 1798 Rebellion, that the best confidence-building measures for promoting the unity of Catholic, Protestant and Disenter would involve strengthening and enhancing democratic rights for all on this island, rather than taking them away. The Good Friday agreement is explicitly underpinned by eight fundamental civil and human rights and guarantees respect for different cultural and linguistic traditions. That is a good start.
I note that the other TM has called for internment on previous occasions in your columns. If he could put to one side his obsession with failed security solutions for one moment, he might reflect on the notion that were these basic civil, human and national rights not denied by the old unionist regime - and the British state which backed them - we almost certainly would have avoided the past 30 years or so of bloody conflict. - Is mise, Tony Moriarty,
Bother Chnoc Sheipeal Iosoid, Baile Atha Cliath 20.